29 February 2008

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks tumbled on Friday as another round of weak economic data added to U.S. recession fears and a record loss at insurer AIG underscored worries about more write-downs in the financial sector. ~ link

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Nearly 70 percent of Americans believe traditional journalism is out of touch, and nearly half are turning to the Internet to get their news, according to a new survey. (see link)

is it really any wonder why people are turning away from 'traditional journalism'? take media general/kalb for example. on tuesday, 26 february 2008 the alexandria city council had their regular meeting as well as a special meeting and yet kalb has not reported one word about either meeting. all of those suckers depending on kalb to keep them informed dont even know the city council had even met. then kalb has the audacity to proclaim at every opportunity how they "are on your side." the thing is though, they never say who the "your" is in their tag line. is it kalb's advertisers and governmental and corporate pals whose side they are really on? sure looks that way judging from the quality of reporting over there.

in the 26 february 2008 alexandria city council meeting, an assistant louisiana attorney general and the rapides parish district attorney himself came to give a 'presentation' on open meetings law to the council and yet not one word has ever been said about it on kalb. the gannett/town talk hasnt reported it either and this is a major news story as well as was the underlying story as to how and why the attorney general's office came to give their open meetings law presentation in the first place.

kalb is so lame they didnt even bother to sex up the sensational in councilman marshall's statement about how speed b/humps help keep out "undesirables." look at some of the crap on their website they are passing off as news. "hairy steak," "reading baby," "no tox wrinkle treatment."

despite the article ending this way:

[T]he study does support the belief among many large media companies that focusing on local issues is important to their journalistic and economic survival.

our local media just cant understand and gets pissed off when no one takes them seriously. pathetic.

Leap day (February 29) is an intercalary day inserted in a leap year. Leap day has been associated with age-old traditions, superstitions and folklore. It is also recognized as a day of observances and celebrated as a birthday for those born on February 29.

Leap Day

Leap day, also known as leap year day, is an extra day added to the month of February in a leap year. February 29 is the 60th day of a leap year in the Gregorian calendar. It occurs every four years in years evenly divisible by four except for centenary years not divisible by 400.

A leap day is more likely to occur on Mondays or Wednesdays rather than other days because the Gregorian calendar repeats itself every 400 years. Therefore February 29 can occur 15 times on a Monday or Wednesday, 14 times on a Friday or Saturday and 13 times on a Sunday, Tuesday or Thursday.

Brief History of Leap Day

In ancient Rome, leap day was on February 24 due to February being the last month of the calendar. The original Roman calendar added an extra month every few years to maintain the correct seasonal changes. The Julian calendar was implemented in 45 BCE, resulting in a leap day being added to the end of February every four years.

In 1582 Pope Gregory XIII refined the Julian calendar with a new rule that a century year is not a leap year unless it is evenly divisible by 400. The introduction of the Gregorian calendar was observed in some countries including Italy, Poland, Portugal, and Spain. The conversion took longer for other countries such as Great Britain (1752) and Lithuania (1915).

Tradition, Folklore and Superstition

A tradition was introduced many centuries ago to allow women to propose to men during a leap year. This privilege of proposing was restricted to leap day in some areas. Leap day was sometimes known as “Bachelors’ Day”. A man was expected to pay a penalty, such as a gown or money, if he refused a marriage offer from a woman.

The tradition’s origin stemmed from an old Irish tale referring to St Bridget striking a deal with St Patrick to allow women to propose to men every four years. This old custom was probably made to balance the traditional roles of men and women in a similar way to how the leap day balances the calendar.

It was also considered to be unlucky for someone to be born on a leap day in Scotland and for couples to marry on a leap year, including on a leap day, in Greece.

Observances on February 29

Leap day is also St Oswald’s Day, named after a 10th century archbishop of York who died on February 29, 992. The feast is celebrated on February 29 during leap years and on February 28 in other years.

February 29 is one of the days of Ayyám-i-Há (February 26 to March 1) in the Bahá'í calendar. These days are dedicated to fasting preparations, charity, hospitality and gift-giving.

28 February 2008

in his latest youtube video, larry sinclair says that hes not "whining or crying about the alleged results of the polygraph done in los angeles on the twenty-first of february - i am raising the same questions that the second expert gordon barland made very clear in his report"

mr. sinclair says that he is "calling out dan parisi and whitehouse dot com because they began outright lying immediately after the polygraph was conducted in mr. gelb's office."

mr. sinclair says that he is raising issues with the validity of the polygraph report including the way the machine was hooked up to his body.

whitehouse.com has mysteriously removed all its posts regarding larry sinclair from its website and has stopped payment on a $20,000 dollar check they had given to mr. sinclair. the $20,000 was apparently promised to mr. sinclair by whitehouse.com and dan parisi under the guise of giving whitehouse.com and dan parisi exclusive rights to polygraph him and to be the first to present the results to the world.

however, whitehouse.com and dan parisi's actions have been very suspicious to many and many more are increasingly coming under the impression that whitehouse.com and dan parisi, perhaps acting as agents of barack obama or the barack obama campaign or other interested individuals or entities connected to senator obama, were playing mr. sinclair all along, to discredit him by manipulating the results or by outright lying about the results of the polygraph test. besides going back on their word about the payment and never posting the complete results of the polygraph, whitehouse.com had promised to post the video of the polygraph test and never did.

whitehouse.com is a bunch of liars and you shouldnt trust them as a place to get real news from.

the gannett/town talk reports today here on how local law enforcement agencies use video and audio devices on suspects while investigating crime.

this video from wkrn.com nashville, tennesseeshows us that it can be a two way street

excerpt:

The community of Cookeville, in Putnam County, is facing a $10 million lawsuit amid the release of shocking police dash cam video.

The video, from a Cookeville police cruiser, shows the arrest of a Putnam County man.

A Cookeville officer is seen allegedly placing drugs on the man, Carlos Ferrell, before arresting him.

Ferrell is now suing the city of Cookeville, the police department, Putnam County, and the sheriff's office for $10 million.

During the arrest, Ferrell was also bitten by a police K9.

Chris Melton, one of the officers involved, is now on leave, and his police force is facing statewide scrutiny.[...]Ferrell’s attorney Blair Durham said his client was the victim of violent police work and attacked by a K9 unit.

Durham said by the end of the ordeal, his client feared for his life and was simply agreeing with anything officers said.

““The crux of lawsuit really centers around the fact that he was treated subhuman,” he said. “The constitution was just laughed at, as far as the treatment for him; drugs were planted upon him, the physical abuse and abuse from dogs.”

Durham said the case could go before the Federal Department of Justice.

larry sinclair sent the below excerpted email to dan parisi owner of www.whitehouse.com and they respond by removing all of their larry sinclair posts - including the increasingly suspicious "polygraph" series of posts.

somehow, despite posting that they were changing their commenting system to require a registration, after the removal of all their larry sinclair posts - the original commenting system has also returned to the whitehouse.com website posts.

Big Head DC has obtained an e-mail sent from Larry Sinclair, the man who accuses Sen. Barack Obama of using drugs and of having a sexual encounter with him in 1999, to Dan Parisi, owner of WhiteHouse.com. The message was sent early this morning:

Mr. Parisi,

This is to inform you yet again that you continue to have up on your web site photographs and reports concerning me which you have publicly stated you have stopped payment for.

You need to remove those posts and make payment for the use of them which has been billed and sent to your New York office and you must do so within 48 hours make said payment if the original payment is returned by your bank unpaid. ~ click link to read entire letter.

Larry Sinclair claims that deception occurred with Whitehouse.com. regarding the Lie Detector test about the alleged Sex and Drug Scandal with Barack Obama. He claims to have posted all the email correspondences with them for the public to view. Also, interestingly, he has posted copies of the Whitehouse.com checks and presented info that the checks were given to the charities.

Now Whitehouse.com has posted only Dr Gelb’s report that had been originally handwritten. It took another full day to type up a one page , simplistic report. Why is that? Only one page??????? This is science??????? This is the scientific evidence??????

NO charts displaying data were posted on their site.

NO list of questions asked for 4 hours were supplied for review on their site.

To date, the 2nd polygraph examiner has not written his report to be posted on Whitehouse.com. Why is that???????? ~ link

as usual if americans want to get any relevant news we have to go outside the united states to get it.

alan greenspan was the longtime chairman of the federal reserve.

al jazeera excerpt:

Alan Greenspan, the former chairman of the US central bank, or Fed, has said that inflation rates in Gulf states, which are reaching near record levels, would fall "significantly" if oil producers dropped their US dollar pegs.

Speaking at an investment conference on Monday in Jedda, Saudi Arabia, he said the pegs restrict the region's ability to control inflation by forcing them to duplicate US monetary policy at a time when the Fed is cutting rates to ward off an economic downturn.

according to this graphic put out today by gannett/the town talk, alexandria city councilman charles frederick 'droopy draws' smith receives a fantabulous annual salary of $56,232 working in the corrections division of the rapides parish sheriff's office.

big head dc has uncovered illinois state senate records which show that then illinois state senator barack obama was absent from the senate on 04 november 1999. this date falls within the time frame that larry sinclair alleges that he and senator and 2008 democratic party presidential candidate, barack obama had several drugs and same sex encounters in illinois. mr. sinclair alleges that one encounter happened in the back of a limo and the next in mr. sinclair's hotel room.

whitehouse.com a website that was formally a hard core pornography website administered a polygraph test on mr. sinclair the results of which whitehouse.com claim to show 'deception' on the part of mr. sinclair.

however, those on the internet watching this unfolding saga have grown increasingly skeptical of this whole whitehouse.com polygraph nonsense due to whitehouse.com's bizarre and suspicious behavior since they released the first "expert" polygraph analysis, sunday, 24 february 2008..

despite whitehouse.com actually writing out a check to mr. sinclair in the amount they promised to pay him for undergoing their polygraph -- whitehouse.com the very next day informed mr sinclair that they had instructed their bank to dishonor the check if and when it was presented for payment. see larry sinclair's personal blog here for screen grabs of the check and more.

despite promising to post the "secondary polygrapher results" as well as the video of the polygraph test itself, whitehouse.com issued a statement on their website at 2:35 pm yesterday (26 february 2008) saying that "we are no longer going to post anything else on larry sinclair matter."

regarding the secondary polygrapher results, big head dc reported that they had:

[R]eviewed Barland’s report, which WhiteHouse.com originally commissioned yet failed to post, and Barland indicates there were technical flaws in procedure (including unnecessary interruptions), irregularities in the way the polygraph device was hooked up to Sinclair’s arm, and “uncommon” recording abnormalities involving Sinclair’s truthfulness about Obama’s alleged cocaine use. ~ link

whitehouse.com deleted the many thousands, if not tens of thousands, of comments visitors had left on whitehouse.com's larry sinclair posts.

a commenter on big head dc called 'voter' sums it up pretty clearly:

17. Voter said:

Sounds like whitehouse.com and Dan Parisi have alot of explaining to do. They didn’t carry out their end of the deal either. Now you can’t even post a comment on their site. Were they tired of hearing the truth. Until they post the video, the computer print outs and everything else related to this case, the public can only conclude that they are hiding something. What are they hiding? Who is paying them to hide the information? Sounds like a cover up to me.

the gannett/town talk posted a story this morning about ms. emma lee, aged 69 of alexandria, louisiana.

the town talk quoting the alexandria police report writes:

According to the police report, Lee said she hit her nephew Wayne Hockless, 44, in the back with the hammer “as hard as she could.”

The report states, after being read her Miranda rights, “Emma then stated she was tired of her son Terry and her nephew Wayne bringing drug dealers in her residence. Emma then stated that she has had enough of it and wanted to do something about it.

“Emma stated that she grabbed a hammer and hit Wayne in the back with it as hard as she could.”

Officers were called to 2512 Los Angeles Drive, (according to google maps its actually los angeles street) the address shared by Emma Lee, Terry Lee and Hockless, about 12:37 a.m. today to investigate a disturbance.

They were met by Terry Lee, 42, who told them his mother had hit his cousin with a hammer.

“Wayne stated that his aunt Emma hit him in the back with a hammer after an argument,” the report states.

Hockless was taken to Huey P. Long Regional Medical Center where he was treated for what the report lists as a “minor injury.”

perhaps it was a formality and the police didnt have any choice we dont know for sure but the town talk states that:

the alexandria city council committee and council meetings continue to be a gold mine for blogosphere fodder. small wonder the city doesnt really want a professionally ran channel four or city website with the streaming video, eh?

in this clip of a lively exchange between alexandria, la. city council president louis marshall and city of alexandria chief operating officer, kay michiels, council prez marshall just cant seem to be able to make the leap in understanding why speed b/humps are not a good idea.

council prez marshall even claims that speed b/humps help to keep out "undesirables" exactly how so we're not sure since he didnt elaborate. anyway, it brought to mind this kalb & mike magnoli, 26 september 2007 report:.

in this video one can plainly see that speed b/humps reduced the response time of alexandria police officer david foshee who was responding to a fight which had broken out and had drawn a "large crowd." it would seem that if someone in a "large crowd" or otherwise, was wanting to do harm to a police officer, that the police officers having to slow down to a crawl to traverse a speed b/hump would leave them most vulnerable to a gunman or brick-bat thrower.

an alexandria resident, shamekica deal, interviewed in mr. magnoli's story says "they (alexandria police) need to patrol more in the neighborhood..."

central la politics points out that council prez marshall's comments are "amazingly stupid" especially "coming from a black man, because it is more often than not blacks who fall victim to being called those "undesirables".

One of his greatest passions was fishing, and this year, in his honor, his family and friends have formed the Joey Giordano Foundation, a charitable organization committed to provide for the children in Central Louisiana, according to information provided by Karen Poche.

On April 4 and 5, 2008 the foundation will hold the first (of what we hope to be many) Joey Giordano Memorial Big Bass Bash Fishing Tournament on the Red River in Alexandria.

The proceeds from this event will aid in the creation of a children's play area located in the new Christus St. Frances Cabrini Women's and Children's Hospital.

click here to read more, including the amounts of the payouts and visit the joey giordano foundation website linked above.

big head dc has been doing an awesome job covering the larry sinclair polygraph fallout.

on monday 25 february 2008 big head dc conducted an exclusive interview with larry sinclair. link heremr. sinclair discusses his concerns about how the polygraph was conducted and how he was treated by dan parisi and whitehouse.com.

today we learn from big head dc that dan parisi has reneged on his deal to pay larry sinclair for his polygraph test.

excerpt:

WhiteHouse.com entered into an agreement to pay Larry Sinclair, the Minnesota man who claims he used drugs and had a sexual encounter with Sen. Barack Obama in 1999, a certain amount of money before Sinclair agreed to take a polygraph for the site, but now the site has reneged on the deal. This new twist is revealed within an e-mail sent on Tuesday from WhiteHouse.com founder Dan Parisi to Sinclair, which refers to Big Head DC’s Monday interview with Sinclair.

“I saw this interview this morning and posted your response in regards to another polygraph test,” Parisi writes in the e-mail. “It shows that you are doing another polygraph with results in this afternoon in violation of our agreement. I have instructed bank to stop payment on the $20,000 check this morning. The $10,000 in checks going to the charities are not effected (sic) and will be paid.” ~ link

now this evening big head dc lets us know that the results of the second expert's analysis of mr. sinclair's polygraph is in and raises even more questions about the tests accuracy.

excerpt:

Gordon Barland, a respected polygraph expert, has finished reviewing the Ed Gelb-produced polygraph test administered recently on Larry Sinclair, the Minnesota man who claims he used drugs and had a sexual encounter with Sen. Barack Obama in 1999.

Big Head DC has reviewed Barland’s report, which WhiteHouse.com originally commissioned yet failed to post, and Barland indicates there were technical flaws in procedure (including unnecessary interruptions), irregularities in the way the polygraph device was hooked up to Sinclair’s arm, and “uncommon” recording abnormalities involving Sinclair’s truthfulness about Obama’s alleged cocaine use. ~ link

mr. sinclair posted the following statement about it on his personal blog:

This is to explain my position on the Barland QC report.

Barland was smart enough to point out the data that was and was not provided to him for review. He was smart enough to point out the uncommon methods used and the lack of control over the situation by Mr. Gelb.

Yes, Barland still concurs with Gelb, which I had no doubt he would under the circumstances, but he was smart enough to protect himself by pointing out concerns.

I also want people to look at the actions of Whitehouse.com over the last 24 hours alone, something is truly not right here.

You do not just up and shut down your operation and revamp it in the manner that Parisi has done. What is there to hide.

Was it not Parisi who said "Put up or Shut up?"

Why would you stop payment on a check that you pay for services and you received those services and then you claim you are entitled to because you think a breach of contract may occur at some future time. Mr. Parisi breached our agreement as early as Friday afternoon 2-22-08. I have not submitted to another polygraph, I stated I wanted to do another one in full disclosure which was what Parisi said he was doing and then did not.

in a speech in today's economic development committee meeting, alexandria mayor jacques roy seemingly took this blog and presumably other blogs to task over questions we've been raising concerning the proposed contract between the city of alexandria and kja communications group over the management of the government public access channel four and the city of alexandria's official website.

According to a copy of the proposal, KJA -- the only firm that has been involved in the maintenance of city media outlets in the past few years -- could have gotten a new contract for $145,000 if the proposal would have passed. It's not clear how long KJA has been under contract with the city.

A public records request sent to the office of City Attorney Charles "Chuck" Johnson requesting copies of previous contracts has not been answered. Calls to his offices were not returned Monday.

the mayor in his speech today says that "under ordinance 386-2003 and ordinance 397-2003 this council, in 2003 authorized work on both the enhancement of the city's government access channel and on the website of the city and it spells out in detail what that would include and it includes city government airing of services, city facilities and services, community centers, website overview , also downtown rocks, brown bag, pops on the levee, amoa, arna bontemps, performing arts, seasonal events, twelve nights of christmas, mardi gras, river fest, zoo-boo, lady bass tournaments, uncle sam jam, the alexandria zoo, youth leagues, hunting, fishing, golf, aces, movie theatres, restaurants, night life and shopping and i say all that to point out that the council authorized there to be work done on both the website and channel four." then the mayor says "to clear up for the publc and we should have this discussion publically, we had talked about doing an rfp, because kja had submitted a proposal and they had one outstanding for months, mr. eric hunt also submitted a proposal and so we've decided, you and i had talked about we'd pull everything and wait..." what he mayor never explains is that since there has been ordinances on the books since 2003 -- then why hasnt any of this or a substantial amount of it been done already? thats what no one wants to explain. there is this 11m41s promotional video that mysteriously appeared a couple of months ago on channel four -- but still the vast majority of the time channel four is blue screened. why?

councilman lawson never addresses why the council continually defers and delays consideration and enactment of ordinance(s) setting forth specific policies and procedures concerning the operation of channel four etc. why is that? then, when we bring these questions up we get admonished for what councilman lawson calls "creating tensions." well we guess we do!

over and over again this past year we've witnessed councilman lawson state that channel four needs to be taken to 'the next level.' yet it never is. whoever is running channel four wont even help citizens out and put the date on the committee meetings. by the way, we never have seen the retreat video broadcast despite the mayor's assurances to us through kalb that it would be broadcast. again, why is that? that special star tek city council meeting from december 2007 was never broadcast either. why?furthermore, we have the right to speculate as to whether or not anything "untoward" is going on. louisiana has a reputation, well deserved, as the most corrupt state in the nation. for example see: corporate crime reporter: 'louisiana most corrupt state in the nation' and us news and world report: 'louisiana's history of corruption bodes ill for the relief money headed its way' it wasnt bloggers that gave louisiana this reputation - it was for the most part politicians. who was it that used a fake traffic study and represented it to be real?

why should we have to go to all the trouble and expense of filing public records requests when the city already has or should possess the technology to post the information in controversy and everything else applicable to public records to its website for everyone to see. if the city cant figure out how to sort all their many documents and post them -- then why not do one an intergovernmental agreement with the rapides parish clerk of court and have her teach you how?

now that we think of it the mayor never stated whether or not the city had answered the town talk's public records request.

anyway, the mayor and the city council can try and spin the channel four and city website deal anyway they like but like a famous politician once said -- watch what they do not what they say.

so when we finally see some progressive action taken on channel four, including consistent broadcast and rebroadcasting of every regular and special city council and committee meeting we will believe something is actually being done.

also, we would like to add that if the media would do their job and ask questions and follow up on these things, then that would effectively kill blogs because there wouldnt be much of anything to speculate about now would there? there should have already been a whole series of articles in the town talk about channel four and the city's website and whats really going on. if its the city council throwing a monkey wrench in everything then find out and report it.

The Opinions handed down on the 26th day of February, 2008, are as follows:

PER CURIAM:2007-B -2061 IN RE: RICHARD E. LEE

(Disciplinary Proceedings)Upon review of the findings and recommendations of the hearingcommittee and disciplinary board, and considering the record, briefs,and oral argument, it is ordered that Richard E. Lee, Louisiana BarRoll number 7904, be and he hereby is suspended from the practice oflaw for six months, with all but forty-five days deferred, subject tothe conditions set forth in this opinion. Any failure of respondent tocomply with these conditions may be grounds for making the deferredportion of the suspension executory, or imposing additionaldiscipline, as appropriate. All costs and expenses in the matter areassessed against respondent in accordance with Supreme Court Rule XIX,§ 10.1, with legal interest to commence thirty days from the date offinality of this court's judgment until paid.

sunday evening (24 february 2008) a silly pretend local am radio 'gadfly' vanity googles himself and winds up on a local internet blog. imagine mr. graichen's horror after he learns that the very first entry on him in google is where hes taken to task on a popular local internet blog.

what to do, what to do, he decides to leave a rather cryptic comment on the blog post in which he hopes the blogger has a "diary." ?!? wtf

this morning around 7:46 am cst an astute and loyal reader of central la politics, phones in to ksyl and mentions the bloggers response and actually states the correct name of the local blog. click here for streaming .mp3 clip.

when mr. graichen joins the show around 8:00 am, he soon addresses the callers inquiry and goes into full damage control mode.

mr. graichen states that "ya know one of the things i like about what we do here is we're not experts on anything we just sort of sit here, we have a good time and we discuss a lot of things like people would around a table at home or something like that...we dont pretend to be experts on anything"

responding directly to the earlier caller's inquiry, mr. graichen says that he's now sorry that he even brought it up and further tries to dismiss the central la politics blog by suggesting that mr. graichen is "probably the first person who's responded to this guy's blog in a year and a half."

whats interesting is that mr. graichen would have us believe that no one reads central la politics, yet the content on there is obviously important enough to him to bring up twice -- to try and dismiss it -- in as many days.

A debated proposal to hire KJA Communications for maintenance and programming of the Government Access Channel and the city of Alexandria's Web site has been pulled from a committee agenda.[...]The item appeared on an earlier version of the agenda as part of a committee discussion, but a new version of the agenda released Monday afternoon no longer shows it listed for discussion today.

in a story published today the gannett/town talk signals that they are going to get serious investigating and hopefully reporting what they find out about the city of alexandria's public access channel and website.

city of alexandria running scared

reporter karina donica writes:

According to a copy of the proposal, KJA -- the only firm that has been involved in the maintenance of city media outlets in the past few years -- could have gotten a new contract for $145,000 if the proposal would have passed.

It's not clear how long KJA has been under contract with the city. A public records request sent to the office of City Attorney Charles "Chuck" Johnson requesting copies of previous contracts has not been answered. Calls to his offices were not returned Monday.

click link to read more...

town talk leaves out news of attorney general 'presentation' to city council on open meetings law

according to today's city council agenda an assistant attorney general is to make a presentation to the alexandria city council on open meetings law. this hasnt been reported by the main stream media yet although it could be the subject of a separate story.

25 February 2008

in today's gannett/town talk, alexandria city government column (see link), the reporter karina donica, incompetently witholds two very important items on the tuesday 26 february 2008 alexandria city council agenda.

in one instance ms. donica inexplicably leaves out reporting that the louisiana state attorney general's office is scheduled to do a 'presentation' to the alexandria city council on open meetings law.

anytime a public body is practically ordered, although the official face-saving excuse given, is that the city council "agreed" (under threat of the attorney general filing for injunctive relief) to a presentation like this, it is certainly news worthy - except to gannett and the town talk.

F. NEW BUSINESS

To hear a presentation from Charlie Braud from the Attorney General’s Office on Open Meetings Law.

18) To consider final adoption of an ordinance authorizing the Mayor to enter into a Professional Services Agreement with KJA Communications Group for the maintenance and production of programming for the City’s Government Access Channel and development of the City’s web site. (LEGAL 2/12:DELAY & 2/26) ~ source

another city council agenda item ms. donica, conveniently, leaves out of her 'report' is news that final adoption of the kja communications group contract is back again on the city council legal committee agenda. this is despite the fact that at the previous city council meeting the council stressed the need to refer proposals such as this to the rfp (request for proposals) process. yet not one word is reported from the town talk about what gives.

another point the town talk fails to mention or even ask questions of relating to the "production and programming of the city's government access channel and development of the city's web site" is that - again from the previous city council meeting the council delayed discussion and enactment of rules and regulations governing the use of channel four and the city's website. doesnt it make more sense for the city to have rules and regulations in place before awarding a contract (to anyone) for the development of same?

something very funny is going on here and none of the media will investigate at the very least channel four to get to the bottom of what it is. the town talk has no excuse for not investigating this when it was just yesterday billy gunn was sexing up the town talk and his own investigative prowess LOL over the down town houseboats controversy. mr. gunn wrote:

Up to five boats at one time were moored near the Levee Park Amphitheatre when The Town Talk started looking into the free dockings in the summer of 2006. The owners of at least three of the boats have since moved them. emphasis added - source

it looks like the town talk very carefully picks and chooses who and what it "looks into." in this case the town talk didnt have any problem dogging out the houseboat owners, even attempting to make mr. tanner appear crazy whilst giving a pass to certain other powerful corporate and governmental interests involving the expenditure of hundreds of thousands (if not a million or more in the aggregate) of taxpayer dollars.

wst... has learned that after we posted about the city of alexandria/kja communjications group contract, that on at least two separate occasions in the past several weeks mr. david pugh (owner of kja communications group) has been phoning around in a desperate attempt to quash any mention - especially out here on the blogosphere - of the kja - city of alexandria contract.

this might help to explain why the corporate media looks the other way over whats really going on with channel four, when after all you consider that kja communications group is an advertising agency. so its not unreasonable to assume that kja threatened to pull their clients advertising from the town talk if they continued to report on the contract now is it? if this is indeed true, one has to wonder if kja's clients agree to being used as pawns this way?

24 February 2008

Dr. Ed Gelb, Former President of the American Polygraph Association was the Polygraph expert selected by Whitehouse.com. He has done over 30,000 polygraph examinations over his long career. There were two polygraph tests administered by Dr. Gelb on Friday. the first polygraph asked Mr. Sinclair on his sex claims. The second polygraph test asked Mr. Sinclair on the drug use claims. There was deception indicated in both tests.

"they're people in the situations of power and influence who just repeat what someone else tells them. a doctor is repeating what they were told at medical school and what the drug companies tell them. you've got teachers who repeat what they learned in their exams and what they learned at teacher training college and they repeat that to the next generation. and the great repeaters are what pass for journalists...the fact is they dont know whats happening, they know nothing."

what journalists should really say is that "i tell you what they've told me is going on and i deliver it as if i know whats going on and its really true - i havent got a clue if its true but they tell me and they wouldnt lie would they? i mean, would tony blair lie? would george bush lie? please, i'am a journalist trust me."

so what we call news is merely propaganda that "they" have told the journalists and the journalists repeat to us.

22 February 2008

Sharks are nature's most efficient killing machine, and can hunt and kill their prey with remarkable ease. These photographs capture the amazing splendor -- and horror -- of two-ton great white sharks traveling at speeds up to 35 mph, and leaping 10 feet out of the water, to catch their prey.

Due to security concerns, we had to move the Larry Sinclair Polygraph up a few days. We conducted it in secret today and the picture to the left is from from one of the two arduous polygraphs Sinclair underwent today.

The process took four grueling hours, testing Sinclair's claims of sex and drug use separately and also including a drug screening to ensure that Sinclair didn't enlist any chemical assistance.

The results are being confirmed by a second expert and we'll have conclusive word, along with video of the whole thing, Monday or Tuesday. Check back then for more, including video the tests and, of course, the results. ~ link